Don’t call them pet owners. Those who see themselves as pet “parents” are lifting demand for premium pet products and services, including all-natural and organic pet food, fashion collars and lavish grooming and care.

Dallas is fertile ground for this new genre of pet supply store. Think boutique and specialty shopping for your four-legged pal.

One of them is Memphis-based Hollywood Feed which entered the Dallas market in 2014 and already has 20 stores here. Its stores are about 3,000 square feet and are being closely watched by a strong group of independents in the market. Hollywood has tried to buy some of them out as it aggressively looks for real estate.

Mackenzie Capetillo, of Dallas, bathes her dog, Zoey, while visiting Hollywood Feed with her mother, Suzanne Capetillo, in Dallas June 17, 2016. The store, near the corner of Royal Lane and Preston Road, opened nearly two years ago. The store advertises itself as a "source for high quality, natural and holistic pet food and supplies." (Andy Jacobsohn/The Dallas Morning News)

(Staff Photographer)

Behind the trend are growing numbers of people “who care about what they eat and care more about what they’re feeding their dog,” said Marsha Lindsey, owner of Lucky Dog Barkery and a pioneer in the modern pet store business.

“There’s a reason human food trends like quinoa and coconut oil end up in the dog food aisle,” she said. The dog lover opened her pet shop with hardwood floors and a country store feel in the Plaza at Preston Center in Dallas 11 years ago. Lindsey has three freezers in her store to keep raw food.

Former 'A-List Dallas' reality star Taylor Garrett now owns and operates Jack & Jill Pet Market on Oak Lawn Avenue, named after his French Bulldogs, Jack and Jill.

(DMN Staff photo)

“More people care about what they eat and care more about what they’re feeding their dog," Lindsey said.

The pet store industry is growing faster than the overall economy, according to a report by IBIS World, thanks to these changing consumer attitudes toward pet care and spending. The industry is expected to grow at an annualized rate of 3.9 percent over the next 10 years, vs. the U.S. GDP at an annualized rate of 2.2 percent.

IBIS estimates that pet supply stores are an $18.5 billion a year business, with big-box chains PetSmart snaring 37.2 percent of the retail market share and No. 2 Petco with 23.3 percent. Petco has developed its own smaller store called Unleashed by Petco that it created to fit into neighborhood shopping centers. The rest of the business is fragmented. The next biggest chain is Pet Supplies Plus, which is also in the Dallas market and has a U.S. market share of 4.3 percent.

Memphis-based Hollywood Feed entered the Dallas-Fort Worth market in 2014. This store is located at City Line in Richardson. It now has 20 stores in the market and plans to open 20 more in the next few years.

(Courtesy photo)

Single-store owners and smaller specialty chains aren’t intimidated by the big chains and the supermarket and discount store pet aisles.

Hollywood Feed has 45 stores in Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi. It’s planning 20 more local stores as the North Texas population grows, said Shawn McGhee, president of Hollywood Feed.

Mackenzie Capetillo, of Dallas, walks toward the back of the store to bathe her dog, Zoey, while visiting Hollywood Feed with her mother, Suzanne Capetillo, in Dallas June 17, 2016. The store, near the corner of Royal Lane and Preston Road, opened nearly two years ago. The store advertises itself as a "source for high quality, natural and holistic pet food and supplies." (Andy Jacobsohn/The Dallas Morning News)

(Staff Photographer)

“We’ll be building stores here the rest of our lives if 200,000 people a year keep moving in. It has proven to be a welcoming market for us,” McGhee said. Five more leases have been signed in the Dallas area.

The company was a three-store chain in 2006 when McGhee and three other Tennessee families purchased the company with intentions of growing it. Georgia may be the next state, and the plan is to have a total of 50 stores by year end.

“We’d like to grow faster. Available real estate is challenging in this Dallas market,” McGhee said. “If you want the very best real estate, you have to wait in line.”

It took Hollywood Feed three years to find the Allen location that opened this month at 1314 W. McDermott Dr., he said.

Shawn McGhee, president of Memphis-based Hollywood Feed, is photographed with pet beds made in Mississippi. About 75 percent of the store's products are made in the U.S. The pet supply chain opened 20 stores in Dallas-Fort Worth from 2014 to 2016 and plans to open 20 more over the next few years.

In recent years, new local pet supply stores have opened, including Downtown Pawz on Main St. in Dallas and Raw by Canines First, which bills itself as a Whole Foods Market for pets.

That’s the way McGhee wants people to think of Hollywood Feed.

“Our model is targeted at the high-end pet owners," he said. "We like to locate near Whole Foods Market and Sprouts, believing they are like-minded about their pet’s food.”

Taylor Garrett opened Jack and Jill Pet Market on Oak Lawn in Dallas in 2014 because he had sought out the best food for his French bulldogs, Jack and Jill, who have sensitive stomachs. He was a political fundraiser when he started a dog food delivery company on the side until he had enough customers to open a shop.

Pet owners still remember major dog food recalls of the mid-2000s ,when pets were dying across the U.S., Garrett said. “People are tired of junk going into their pet food, and so food became a growing business.”

Small food distributors continue to get gobbled up by bigger companies that want to be in the specialty-food business, said Lindsey. It’s similar to how many organic and locally sourced brands of human food were bought by big food companies, she said.

Then there’s online competition. Chewy.com is a big player in the business, with auto replenishment and free delivery.

In an era when online shopping is growing faster than physical store sales, Hollywood Feed says it can open stores by offering service and internet-competitive prices minus what McGhee says is “a world of never-ending automated voicemail trees, robot text messages and spam email.”

“When you have a pet dilemma, what I believe each of us craves is a real live human who cares and is more than willing to help,” McGhee said.